SPARTANBURG COUNTY, S.C. (WSPA) — Strong winds caused damage and knocked out power for thousands of people across the Upstate on Saturday.
“Oh, it’s rough,” said Debra Martin who lives in Spartanburg. “It’s rough, it’s real windy.”
Gusts snapped trees across the area, including on Whitney Road in Spartanburg County. Branches fell into the street, blocked traffic, and some drivers had to be re-routed. On South Cleveland Park Drive, a tree shut down part of the road for hours and took down powerlines too.
“All I heard was a loud boom, and I ran to my door and that’s when I saw the big tree that fell across from the park, across the road,” said Martin.
It happened near Debra Martin’s home and some of the powerlines even fell in her front yard.
“It’s all across my yard and the fence and stuff,” she said.
So, she called Duke Energy to report the issue. A Duke Energy spokesperson told WSPA that “high winds began impacting customers in the upstate and Western North Carolina early [Saturday] morning. As those incidents have been addressed, ongoing high wind gusts have continued to cause new outages.”
The spokesperson also said crews are working to restore power as quick as they can. As of 8:30 p.m. Saturday, fewer than one thousand people were without power in the Upstate. Martin said her power was out for a few hours on Saturday.
“This morning, my lights was blinking, kept blinking off and on and finally they just went completely off,” said Martin.
She said that eventually the power came back on, and blames the weather for causing the problem.
“It’s an old tree, it’s probably the wind that made the tree fall,” said Martin.
Duke Energy also said some people may not have power back on until Saturday night. People can report issues or check outages here.
